La lecture à portée de main
Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage
Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement
Je m'inscrisDécouvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement
Je m'inscrisVous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage
Description
Sujets
Informations
Publié par | Balboa Press AU |
Date de parution | 22 février 2023 |
Nombre de lectures | 0 |
EAN13 | 9781982296766 |
Langue | English |
Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0200€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.
Extrait
BETRAYAL
Loraine St Clair
Copyright © 2023 Loraine St Clair.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Balboa Press
A Division of Hay House
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.balboapress.com.au
AU TFN: 1 800 844 925 (Toll Free inside Australia)
AU Local: (02) 8310 7086 (+61 2 8310 7086 from outside Australia)
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
ISBN: 978-1-9822-9675-9 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-9822-9676-6 (e)
Balboa Press rev. date: 02/09/2023
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter One
The phone rang persistently, arousing Ariel from a deep sleep. Fumbling for the receiver, her fingers eventually grasped the handset. Bringing the device to her ear she attempted to speak-her voice a bare whisper.
“Hello.” Silence. “Who’s speaking?”
More silence. She repeated her question more assertively. Still no reply. Dropping the receiver onto the bed she moaned loudly in frustration at being disturbed. As her eyes became accustomed to the gloom, she began distinguishing the bedroom fixtures. She made out 12:15am, 13 th September on her digital clock. A voice stirred her sluggish brain. It was calling her name. She wondered briefly if she was in the early stages of bipolar, but soon dismissed the notion as the voice assumed masculine tones.
Rolling over she looked at the telephone receiver lying a few inches from her head. The voice, although distant, had a familiar quality to it. She answered.
“Yes I’m still here.” Silence boomed. “It would be nice if you’d tell me your name!”
Ariel waited. Breathing deeply, she pulled together those threads of reality still available to her in a world shadowed by nightmarish realities. Seconds ticked by. She huddled beneath the blankets and closed her eyes in an attempt to seal off her outer life. The voice returned, this time with more resolve and extended vocabulary.
“Ariel, we have to talk. I....I’m....I don’t know where to start. I’m not good at this sort of thing as you know.”
The voice trailed off. Ariel felt her throat constrict. She threw the covers back as adrenalin began pulsing through her body. Thoughts that she was loath to acknowledge flooded her mind. The disembodied voice came gain.
“This is not the way I intended to explain the...aahh, situation. But I haven’t got the guts to tell you face to face.
Oh God...I wish it were different, Ariel. I wish I could be there with you, holding you in my arms.” He paused, his voice choked with emotion. “It’s a terrible mistake Ariel my darling and you must believe I never meant to hurt you.”
Initially she cried out, begging him to leave her alone. Caught between the cryptic meaning of his words and her own worst suspicions, she summoned the potency to respond.
“If you were here now consoling me Jurgen, I’d probably stab you in the back the way you’ve stabbed me. Only I’d use my best German steel knife and I’d stab you over and over again until the blood surged from your body-the way my life is surging from mine. Goodbye Jurgen and thanks for the death sentence!”
The pathology results had come back from the lab the day before. The hematologist contacted Ariel at the office asking her to call by his clinic after work. Ian Chalmers was a wealthy, middle-aged doctor with an art collection Christies would kill for. They exchanged warm greetings as he admitted her to his suite. Situated on the 20 th floor of one of Macquarie Street’s elite medical establishments, his clinic was bathed in the amber glow of the afternoon sun. It was warming in an otherwise austere clinical environment.
As she lowered herself into a leather lounge chair the aroma of quality hide enveloped her senses. Ian offered her a drink as he strode across the wide expanse of his office to the liquor cabinet. His voice reverberated off the alabaster walls. He inquired:
“Ariel, have you given any thought to our last conversation? I suggested that you take a long holiday. Go north perhaps, spend some time resting and catch up on some reading. Even do a little Yoga and meditation and learn to relax a bit.” His voice gave little away.
Ian Chalmers was a master of the non-alarmist school of medicine to emerge in the seventies. He continued his focus on the dry martinis he was concocting with every bit of precision a brain surgeon used in his work. Ariel stared at his back. An elegant grey linen jacket hung casually from his broad shoulders toned impeccably with a pair of beige slacks. His body was in excellent shape for his fifty-seven years. He worked at it! In fact, everything in Ian Chalmer’s life was worked at. They’d shared an off again/on again relationship for several years. She wondered uneasily at his overly casual manner. They both knew she was sick and he had the results back from pathology.
“Well, his body language doesn’t give much away” she mused.
“What’s he got up his sleeve though? Not a life threatening prognosis I hope!”
She replied enigmatically:
“No Ian, as a matter of fact I’ve barely had time to clean my teeth lately. Dear old Benson is still in the States, leaving me with two board meetings and an annual report to finalize by Friday. And the stockholder’s meeting is scheduled for next Tuesday–you can imagine the chaos?”
“Well, in view of the circumstances I thought the old bull might give you some time out. You haven’t been well for weeks now. The strain must be hell. Put your foot down Ariel. Tell him you’ve got a life too!”
She watched him saunter back across the room like a panther in Gucci loafers. He was disturbed! She smiled inwardly as he handed her a cocktail glass filled with icy gin and vermouth- complete with a green olive threaded neatly on a toothpick. How pedantic he was. They uttered “cheers” and drank.
The cushion hissed as he lowered himself onto the lounge, infusing the air again with erotic leather aroma. Taking another gulp of his martini before placing it on the granite table between them, he looked her squarely in the eyes and said:
“The news isn’t good Ariel. I’ve had Fielders double check the initial results. I’ve been over every aspect of the tests and I can’t find an error. I’m afraid you’ve got a rare blood disease. And when I say rare, believe me, it is!” He paused, taking off his glasses to rub his eyes, then continued. “It’s got the interesting name of `Macrophagesemia.’ I had to look up my medical books to get the prognosis–that’s how rare it is. I’ve only seen one other case in thirty years of practice. God Ariel, we knew from your symptoms you had something unusual but we weren’t quite prepared for anything this exotic!”
His attempt to make light of a grave situation was touching, but Ariel saw straight through the ruse. Her mind immediately engaged in processing all the negatives and his following sentence did little to ease her despair.
“Ariel, in everyday language, some of your white blood cells called macrophages have turned cannibal and are devouring your precious T-cells. The T-cells as you know, are paramount in defending the immune system against attack.”
Behind his glasses his eyes were bloodshot and watery. Ariel sensed this statement was more difficult for him to say than she first realized. She remained stoic, quietly sipping her martini. He went on:
“The best way to describe what’s happening inside your body Ariel is that your immune system is rapidly being destroyed.”
These words ran through endless corridors of her mind echoing the same message over and over:
“Your immune system is rapidly being destroyed.”
She emptied the remains of the martini down her throat in one large gulp. Tears stung her eyes. She blinked them back, unwilling to display the waves of fear that surged through her. As she opened her mouth to speak Chalmers said loudly, almost in an attempt to silence her.
“I’m so sorry Ariel. It’s always challenging to tell a person they have a terminal disease, especially when that person is a woman I love very deeply. But I know you’d rather have the facts as they stand. Macrophagesemia is like AIDS in that they both stem from viral infections, only MPA is far more virulent. Medical science knows very little about these ‘retroviruses’ and no dr